![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 30 | ← | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | Archive 38 | → | Archive 40 |
The next person who decides it's a good idea to delete 25,000 edits, locking the database, and mixing previously deleted vandalisms back into the history, just to hide PUBLIC INFORMATION will get the privilege of explaining to brion why the database just exploded. Have a nice day :) — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-14 03:52
I've unprotected this article. Protection of this article should never be undertaken lightly, and there should never bee any reason to protect it for more than a few hours.
Also could whoever keeps disabling editing of sections please stop. I consider this to be very, very close to vandalism, because of its effect of hampering editing of this article. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 18:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
If it works at all, it's bu rendering this article extremely difficult to edit at all, let alone vandalise. The cure is worse than the disease. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 19:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I've removed it. Having NOEDITSECTION is not a real solution, whether it works or not. It is a pain for real editors and goes against the whole point of having section editing in the first place! wangi 14:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I hope everyone's got this page on their watchlists - it would be really embarrassing if they started messing with the pictures again and a reader saw it. Izehar ( talk) 19:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the back-and-forth over whether redlinks to obscure legislation should be listed, TexasAndroid has now posted those redlinks in List of United States federal legislation - which is where they should be, not necessarily here. I will contend, however, that almost any piece of legislation enacted by a vote of the Congress and signed into law by the President is encyclopedic, especially in a non-paper venue such as our own. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:44, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
And now for a non-vandalism, non-POV related discussion. :) (Wow. Can we actually have those on this page? :) )
I edited out several red links in the Legislation section. Two of them were put back in by one user (Jengod) and then removed by Izehar. Be nice to talk about this here before a revert war starts on such a trivial subject. (I mean, of all the things to have a revert war about on the GWB page, red links? :) )
Jengod called my removal of them nonsense. A bit harsh IMHO, but I've seen worse here on WP. For those who don't want to dig through the edit histories:
While I agree with Jengod that he has given one reason for the existence of red links, IMHO they are equally there to warn user that the link is disfunctional. That going there will get them nothing useful. And also to possibly warn that the link either needs to be fixed or unlinked, because it's not a useful link as is. And, on a high, high profile page like this, the last reason is the most important IMHO. I think that this page should be a showcase of what WP can do for a living, breathing encyclopedia. And as such, the page should be one of the most perfected pages we have. It'll never be perfect, that's impossible. But this page should be held to a higher standard than most others for appearance. (And content, but that's outside the scope of this comment) To that end, IMHO once again, red links detract from the appearance and utility of this page. - TexasAndroid 19:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
One side note to this. A quick count shows that four red links remain on the page currently. Three are to people, one is to yet another peice of legislation, this time in the article itself. I've place the legislation onto List of United States federal legislation, as I did with the first set at BD2412's request. But I'll hold off touching any of the links on the GWB page itself until this discussion can move a little more foreward. - TexasAndroid 20:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
In general, there are way too many links in this article. It's very distracting.
Is the warning label necessary? Has anyone done a survey to determine if this has actually reduced vandalism significantly enough to overrule the potential that it may be discouraging useful editors from participating?-- MONGO 21:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
For those who use Firefox but feel hindered by not being able to edit sections, you can use this Firefox extension (tested in 1.0.7 and 1.5), which allows you to search in edit boxes: Wikipedia:Tools/Browser_Integration#Search_within_Textarea_Extension. Make sure you restart Firefox after installing it, and make sure the mouse has been clicked inside the edit box. Then do CTRL+F. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-15 21:40
Finally! Thank you people! I was so annoyed and pis*ed of from the moment that neutrality dispute was added to the George W. Bush article. Finally those bloody Comrades have shut their bloody Communist traps and have left this poor, ravaged Wikipedia article in peace. I am a hell of a lot happier now. Thank you, SO MUCH!
It seems that WoW (or whoever he or she is) comes around between 20:00 and 22:00 EST....pattern? Deckiller 01:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
The article has been temporarily protected to deal with an influx on trolls vandalizing. Harro 5 01:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Could some admin change the word "averred" in the section of GW's religion to some synonym? (Not that I know what any synonym of such a ridiculous word might be--"implied", maybe?) I'd do it myself, but following Wikipedia's apparent philosophy of letting only the popular users edit popular pages, I can't. Thanks! Matt Yeager 04:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Who thinks that this whole business with the Jimbo personal information, is just some POV warriors underhanded way of assuring that the article stay locked? and un-editable-- 205.188.116.10 05:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
The protection notice is at the top of the page but the page isn't actually protected! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.97.123.201 ( talk • contribs) .
As it stands now, the Health section is entirely devoted to HIV/AIDS. There is no mention of the fact that the number of uninsured Americans has been rising under Bush's administration. Either the section should be renamed HIV-AIDS or additional information be added, revealing Bush's health care policy.
==No edit box == — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 21:52
Why is this there ? Is this article somehow so special that it should not be edited? Refdoc 17:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
There is quite clearly no consensus on this matter wahtsoever - A number of well respected editors and admins above have protested too. I do not think it is right to have such a feature without a high level of consensus. I am no vandal and this is not edit warring. Refdoc 18:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
If you look at the history of this page - there is a large group of users and admins who do not agree with this measure. I am but the last one in a row of editors who has removed it. I simply do not care whether this is a great measure of stopping vandalism. It is also a measure to stop useful editing - and this is what I do care about. Such drastic measures require overwhelming community support. Before you emply them it is up to you to demonstrate this being there. The edit history of today seems to suggest that it quite clearly is not there. Refdoc 18:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I have been accused yesterday of editwarring for removing several times the "no section edit" tag. It is quite clear from teh above discussions that there is not the slightest bit of consensus - not on whether any protection is needed, nor on whether this form of "protection" is the right one. I therefor can only suggest that this odious measure is removed until a consensus is found. Refdoc
Looking at the full history of this page, which I wouldn't recommend anyone else do (my browser was taking up 480MB of memory after the page loaded), I counted various vandalism reversion terms, and came out to just over 6,000. Assuming that each vandalism consisted of only one edit, that comes out to be (after some tedious calculation) over 12,000 edits related only to vandalism. This article has nearly 26,000 edits to date. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 22:28
Additionally, over 10,600 edits were by anonymous users, leaving 15400 for registered users. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 22:34
More fun facts: 249 edits were made in 2002, 555 in 2003, and 5533 in 2004. In 2005, we're up to 19,630. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 22:39
So far in December, about 600 vandalisms and 600 reversions = 1200 total edits related to vandalism, out of 1700 edits. In November, this total is 1700 out of 2600 edits; in October, 1700 out of 2900; in September, 1000 out of 1700; in August, 700 out of 1600. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 23:03
I've added a graph for 2005. "Vandalisms" means anything related to vandalism, including reverting vandalism. Everything else is "not vandalism". — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 23:58
Am I the only one who has noticed the current vandalism? -- The1exile 01:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, that was quick. Forget that last comment then. -- The1exile 01:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Yet more vandalism. I have reverted but I don't see why we just dont stick protection on it and edit it every month or so when the protection can be lifted for a few days. -- The1exile 12:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Do you all think it's time that we finally made a poll--and followed its conclusion--in an attempt to reach some sort of consensus about what we should do, protection-wise?
The reason I'm asking is because pretty much all the information is already out there, and the current situation (a perpetual flux between full protection, varied forms of semi-protection, and no protection) is intolerable for the long term. Persuant to WP:POLLS, I'm going to float the basic idea first and see if we all agree to a poll.
Here it is: we have everyone vote whether or not the page should have ANY sort of non-move protection. (Obviously, move protection has reached a consensus already that it's appropriate and should be kept.) Should the "protection" voters win, we can then have a further poll on what type of protection should be used (have a public, protected page with a secret editable one? full protection? 50-edit protection? etc). I would also suggest that a simple majority of non-sock puppet accounts should determine whether or not to keep it--ideally, there should be a clear consensus one way or another in order to do anything, and an unclear majority should result in keeping the status quo; however, there really isn't a status quo to keep here. Everything's a mess.
So, I'm soliciting opinions here--do we all want a poll on whether to offer any sort of non-move protection on the George W. Bush page? Matt Yeager 00:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't fret, Semi-protection just passed 103-4-2 along with Jimbo's blessing and input from several developers. Help is on the way. -- kizzle 01:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Admins can set new "good versions" as good edits pile up. I thought you said you read the discussions on this page? :) — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-17 02:08
Any attempt to make it more difficult for editors to alter this article will of course fail. It's a wiki, and its purpose is to produce an encyclopedia. We cannot do that by pretending that the articles are finished and must not be edited. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 20:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I just edited out the part "and former governor of Texas" because it's touched upon in the second paragraph. Deckiller 02:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I look up George W Bush, and what do I get? This bozo. This is Bush JR!!! Emphasis on the "Jr." This article should be placed under the appropriate heading, which would be "George W Bush Jr." Looking up "George W Bush" should bring up is father, the 41st president. (Yes, I know now that Bush Sr. is under the article for "George H W Bush." That doesn't change the fact that this article is for Bush Jr, and should be labeled as such.) ethernaut
I've used quite a number of search engines and websites, and, aside from "Jr," I cannot find anything seperating Bush Sr. from Bush Jr. Would you care to provide a site that proves that Bush Jr. doesn't actually have two middle names like his father? (Common knowledge need not apply. I have two middle names myself, but I use only one initial.) Thanks for any help. I'm trying to clear up several arguments. ethernaut
How should we praise the current NSA scandle? I think it should be included. Watsonladd 15:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
This is a raw count of reverts (which is a measure of vandalism) from January this year.
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 4699 | | Total edits | 19733 | +-------------------+----------+
So overall this year, from January 1st to date, about 24% of all edits on this article were reverts.
And since October 1:
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 2021 | | Total edits | 7227 | +-------------------+----------+
Up to 28%.
And for since December1:
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051201000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051201000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 552 | | Total edits | 1771 | +-------------------+----------+
Up to 31%.
How about the period October-November?
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051201000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051201000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 1469 | | Total edits | 5456 | +-------------------+----------+
About 27%.
This suggests a significant jump in reverts during December--the period during which we've had NOSECTIONEDIT directive in this article.
Okay let's look at October and November individually:
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051101000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051101000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 748 | | Total edits | 2890 | +-------------------+----------+
Average for October was 26%
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051101000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051201000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051101000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051201000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 721 | | Total edits | 2566 | +-------------------+----------+
Average for November was 28%.
So there does seem to have been quite a jump in December so far, from 28% to 31%. If making it difficult to edit sections has helped vandalism, the figures don't show it. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 20:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Locking the article would prevent it being edited--which is the purpose of having a wiki in the first place. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 20:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Your statistics have nothing to do with the addition of NOEDITSECTION and the notice, which only came in December. Look at the graph, notice the drop in % vandalism in December? Care to explain it? Your reasoning is bogus. On the whole, of course the vandalism has risen over the year, but we didn't have NOEDITSECTION or the notice for this whole year. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-17 20:52
Your statistics also ignore edit summaries like "rvv" "RVC" and ";rv vandal". — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-17 21:02
My statistics show 31% for December. It's true that I ignore rvv, rvc and rv vandal. I'll repeat them using those proxies. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't mind waiting until I've convinced everybody. The figures are pretty clear. There has been a marked increase in the number of vandalism reverts as a proportion of all edits during December so far, when one takes into account rollbacks, and edits containing the character strings 'rvc,'rvv' and 'rv vandal', and I'm confident that if we keep suppressing the editing of sections matter cannot improve. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:27, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
To make it plain, Brian, I'm making my queries against a mirror of the live database, and the figures I'm getting out are repeatable by anyone else with access to the tools server, simply by repeating my queries, the source of which I have listed.
If there is an error in my queries, please show this and I'll fix it and rerun. I'm not saying your figures are wrong, just that they don't match mine. You may convince me that my method has weakenesses, please feel free to show your own working and how you arrived at your figures. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Protected. The defamation vandal has struck again, thankfully only three times. android 79 21:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
For the whole year:select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where (rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' or lcase(rev_comment) like '%rvc%' or lcase(rev_comment) like '%rvv%' or lcase(rev_comment) like '%rv vandal%') and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051231000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051231000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 5631 | | Total edits | 19743 | +-------------------+----------+
This is about 29%, January to date.
Since October, the equivalent figure is 2355/7245, 32%.
Since the beginning of December, it's 637/1784, 36%.
For October alone, it was 872/2890, 30%.
For November alone, at was 844/2566, 32%.
This shows an even more marked jump for December than just counting rollbacks. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I have to say that I don't understand how NOEDITSECTION could be expected to prevent vandalism. My figures suggest that it has had no such effect. What it definitely does do is make it extremely difficult for a casual editor to edit a section, and this alone could well account for an increase in the proportion of vandalism to non-vandal edits. --
Tony Sidaway|
Talk
21:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
You know, I bet the libel vanda/WoW reads this talk page (how sad). Look at the name of this sockpuppet: User:Around between 20:00 and 22:00 EST. Ring a bell? Didn't Deckiller say:
That's probably why he/she's targeted this page - because he/she knows we're concerned about it. Izehar ( talk) 21:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Look, Wiki gets more popular, people hear about it, they hear they can go and edit any article about any thing, and if they're liberal Bush-haters, they come here, don't understand how much effort real people put into maintaining this page, and they vandalize it. I'll bet the vandalism rate of this page is actually a good metric for the growth of Wikipedia in general, whereas substantive edits (because there's prettymuch everything that can be said about Dubya already on the page) are more difficult to make, and so are not as related. Just my crazy theory. Does this help solve the vandalism problem? ... No, though it does suggest solutions involving pages that you, say, have to log in and have been a Wikipedian for a week before you're allowed to edit. JDoorjam 00:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, here goes: a straw poll. I have no clue about how long it should last, but we'll see. :-) Flcelloguy ( A note?) 21:44, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I started this, feel free to enrich. Izehar ( talk) 21:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
The article is currently protected right now, but I think a sentence or two should be added to the article about the recent revelations that Bush has repeatedly re-authorized spying on U.S. Citizens on U.S. soil without a warrant since 2002. This is very important news and speaks a lot about President Bush's views on privacy. -- Cyde Weys talk contribs 22:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
You've got to be kidding me. If anyone disagrees with Bush or says he's spying, they're "left" leaning. Give me a break. I'm a conservative, and Bush SPIED on the American people, and I'm with Arlen Specter regarding an investigation. I'm sick of using passive words to somehow soften everything this idiot does. He spied, the word is being used everywhere, NOT just left leaning sources. Please don't waste my time calling me "unpatriotic" because I don't care for Bush either. That isn't the point.
By the way, everyone can read these posts. You are giving people ideas about how to vandalise this site, by letting them know every move you're about to make. Go to the sysops and have them do something. Way too much time is spent talking about things, with no solutions forthcoming. It's like listening to Congressional hearings. I've been watching this site for two whole months, and this conversation never changes. It just takes up archive space that could be used for something else. 142.151.143.157 04:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
For what? The thing about the spying is that, according to the law, a court was supposed to rubber stamp a warrant. It bothers people (left and right) that the President didn't bother to obey that law. The Times sometimes doesn't capitalize his title. Some guy here insists on including Mr. Bush in his category - drunk drivers. Apes throwing shit don't look dignified, but if you don't get hit I guess it can be fun. Don't get too close, keep a tally of whose aim is better, and do not yield to the temptation to scoop some up and heave it. Metarhyme 05:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
The section on gaps in Bush's military record is too biased against him. Stating: "Skeptics contend that many of the official records can no longer be found, and that the matter is at best ambiguous. Barring the discovery of additional documents that are either exculpatory or incriminating, the issue is unlikely to be settled conclusively." implies a likely 50/50 split between the suspicions being fact or false. On the contrary, all documents found have corraborated the president's story. The wiki article should reflect that.
Additionally, stating: "Several months later the statewide manual recount of all counties was completed by a group of newspapers and it was determined that Al Gore had won in Florida under four counting standards and had lost to Bush under the other four counting standards." is deceptive, and does not reflect an unbiased summary of even the articles quoted. This quote strongly implies that there was an even chance for Gore to have won the election, and that it was simply a matter of which of eight recount methods were used. On the contrary, most of the proposed methods that resulted in Gore winning were standards that would be *illegal* to use -- for example, assuming that a person that voted for both Gore and Buchanan was a vote for Gore, something no county in America allows.
The NORC study is also not the best study to link for on the subject. A better link would be to the consortium of Florida newspapers that did a manual recount after the election is over. They found that using the most commonly accepted standard for recounts, Bush won. There were variant counting methods by which Gore could have won, but there is a general consensus that he would have lost even if the third recount hadn't been blocked by the US Supreme Court.
Links: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-05-10-recountmain.htm http://www.democ.uci.edu/resources/virtuallibrary/vote2000.htm
-- Wkerney 23:27, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Much as I'm vehemently against Bush and his policies, I've got to say that the chart of his approval rating seems a bit misleading, as it only charts the range between 35 and 90%. It looks as if his approval rating had fallen to near 0% (if only!), the way that this chart construes things. If someone wants to fix this, or find a chart that reflects this, please do. But I do think having the chart is better than having no chart at all, since his declining popularity is certainly noteworthy. Aislar 02:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Although I will say I am not a Republican, the neutrality of this article is not completely neutral. There are many adjectives that carry negative connotations that are used far too liberally (no pun intended). Also, personal takes on the article are glaring "Nation building with MIXED RESULTS". What do you guys say?
Michaelzhao 05:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)Michaelzhao
This afternoon, 24.29.84.114 ( talk · contribs) inserted the following text into the article:
There are a number of problems with this. Firstly it refers to "our continuous presence", presumably this is written from the point of view of the United States of America. Secondly it suggests material assistance provided by Zarqawi to other factions without providing a reference for this. Thirdly it suggests that only this insurgency prevents Iraq from living in peace (ignoring the disaffected Shias, Sadrists, etc). I have removed this text in its current form but a rewritten version may well belong in the article. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 14:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is there larger space, between the title and the body text of this article, than other articles? It's kinda irritating to anal people like me; I'd understand if it's a necessary byproduct of some measure against vandalism, though. -- Apostrophe 02:25, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
This is an absurd category to even exist on wikipedia much less be used to start linking people too. It provides no value and is simply there to continue the smear. Let's vote on who wants it to stay and who wants it to go. -- Jbamb
It seems wrong to me that the He-Man article has been protected for the past 48 hours with little vandalism, and the article for the President of the United States has been nothing but vandalized for the same amount of time. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
In one of the televised debates in the 2000 Republican primaries, all participating candidates were asked to name their favorite philosopher. Bush responded by stating "Jesus Christ", because "he changed my life".
Here is at least one article that supports my recollection:
http://archives.cjr.org/year/00/4/hanson.asp Vegasjon 00:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Here's another http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec00/religion_9-1.html Vegasjon 00:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
A number of authors and commentators have alleged that Bush secured an abortion for his girlfriend Robin Lowman (now Robin Garner) in 1971. Although this allegation remains unproven, it ought to at least merit a mention on Wikipedia's entry for Bush. After all, the Bill Clinton entry is filled with unproven, wild allegations (such as the completely discredited bogus tale of how Clinton was somehow connected to the "murder" of Vince Foster). Until this happens, it's going to be obvious to a lot of us how Wikipedia is demonstrating a clear pro-GOP bias. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.187.35.134 ( talk • contribs) 04:08, December 20, 2005 (UTC)
Here's a source that describes the allegation: http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=159 I understand that anyone who has reported or investigated this allegation has been subject to threats from Bush operatives (I know of one reporter who received numerous death threats from right-wing nutcases; he eventually backed off the story). I just hope Wikipedia doesn't cave in to pressure on this issue.
Can someone please mention this (actually quite credible and certainly newsworthy) Bush/Robin Lowman Abortion Issue on the Wikipedia/Bush entry. Either that, or, for balance, remove that garbage about Clinton "murdering" Vince Foster from Clinton's entry on Wikipedia. Either that, or Wikipedia needs to just go ahead and formally incorporate as an official affiliate of the Republican Party.
"In the late 1990s, our Government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone and then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak," Bush said.
Why does he have to repeat something already said in the sentence.
"And guess what happened. Saddam ... Osama bin Laden changed his behaviour. He began to change how he communicated. We're at war. And we must protect America's secrets."
Even his speech is incoherent.
This are all, basically, current event "scandals" against Bush. Aside from a few sentences that he enjoyed wide support after 9/11, is there nothing anyone can find anywhere that indicated 40 some odd percent of the American people think he is doing a good job? -- Jbamb 23:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
This stretches the bounds for having a NPOV, but it does seem to be authentic. If someone can confirm that this is true, it would make an interesting addition to our Wikipedian entry. [10] - AWF
Carbonite changed this paragraph
to read
The explanation was "reword to eliminate some POV and to more clearly cite the source." Carbonite's version is factually incorrect.
It is not POV to say that a change is statistically insignificant or marginally significant. These are precise terms of art that mean a difference that is less than the margin of error or equal to it. Scientific journals, news articles and encyclopedia entries commonly use these terms. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
It is a factually unsupported statement that "support from African-Americans increased." The data is consistent with a decrease, an increase, or no change. You can only say there was no significant change or that there was a statistically insignificant increase.
It is also factually incorrect that all of the data comes from the CNN exit poll. The 2004 data does come from there, but CNN used 2000 data from the defunct Voter News Service. This detail would be distracting to include in the main article. The CNN reference provides no real information, since the real story is in the footnote. It would be best to just stick with the footnote.
At least the current wording is better than what someone else tried to change it to say. They said that the change was "statistically significant for a Republican," as if the laws of mathematics are different for Republicans:-)
-- RichardMathews 06:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Not sure where to put this, but the annual deficit is measured in billions. Everywhere the article mentions the deficit, it says "trillion".
71.251.26.244
20:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)Anonymous
No point in including this except to advance a POV. The crowd pushing this has always been fringe. -- Jbamb 06:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I will disagree with the aforementioned statement. Impeach Prez or put him in prison. I don't care, just do it. -- Bumpusmills1 00:37, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
There have been articles submitted - resolutions of inquiry. And btw, [24] Kevin baas 15:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I found something quite interesting: [25] Kevin baas 16:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC) Also: n:House_raises_impeachment_issue
MONGO, you may have your opinion, but this is not the forum for discussing opinions. Kevin baas 16:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Jbamb, the section that this is to be included in is public perception - and the content being addressed is not as you say hypothetical speculation, but public perception and purely that. Where do you see speculation? Where do you see anything hypothetical? (besides the poll question - "...if...", which i agree could have been better without this.) Please cite the specific sentences or fragments that you are refering to. Kevin baas 16:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, let me point out that that statement by Gallup is inaccurate, and it was certainly irresponsible of whoever said it to make an inaccurate public statement. Kevin baas 16:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, in the latest Barron's full text paid link -- User:RyanFreisling @ 18:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Is it necessary to give to billing to the theories that Bush screwed the National Guard and that he's a coke head? Can we say nothing else about is family and early life? This should be expanded greatly. For examples, see the John Kerry article that has a substantial bio without giving top billing to the detractors. -- Jbamb 14:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is this page vandalized so much? What are the motives exactly? People inserting email addresses followed by vulgar comments are just waisting their time. 68.103.149.210 03:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
It's something new. This is the first attempt at using it. Read up on it at WP:SEMI. Essentially, anyone with an account older than about 4 days can edit the article. Newer accounts and anons cannot. -- Woohookitty (cat scratches) 08:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Well that makes no sense. This article has been a vandalism target for a long time and will continue to be one. Are people suggesting that sprotection is actually going to be removed any time soon? If not, we need to get rid of such a butt-ugly notice. Dan100 ( Talk) 14:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is this semi-protected? I see no extreme circumstances at this point. If it simply because this is always vandalized alot, I think that is an abuse of the semi policy, it was and is not intended to be used indefinitly. - Greg Asche (talk) 22:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I think I'm doing a terrible job of getting my point across, so I'm going to back up a bit. For right now, let's ignore the issue of how long this page might be semi-protected. It's important to understand that I'm not just referring to this intial protection, but any future protections. Whenever this page is semi-protected, there will be a reason for it. Usually this reason will be an especially high amount of vandalism.
OK, so now we have a semi-protected page. How does the page get unprotected? Do we want anons and new users making requests at WP:RFPP? Or should it be up to admin to take at look at how the page has been protected and decide "OK, that's long enough, let's unprotect"? In my opinion, it should be the latter. That's why I oppose directing people to WP:RFPP to request unprotection. If any requests are to be made, it should be on this talk page, not somewhere else. Keep in mind that I'm only proposing such a process for this page, not for any other semi-protected page. I'm not saying that we should never unprotect this article. I just think the notice should reflect the reality that when or if this article is semi-protected, telling users to make requests at WP:RFPP isn't especially helpful. Since this article is unique in the amount of vandalism it gets, it doesn't seem unreasonable to have a special semi-protection notice just for this page. Carbonite | Talk 16:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Sigh...I wish people had tried to address protection creep rather than keeping it simple early on. As it stands now, GWB should not simply be slapped with semi-protection and left on. However, this does not mean that it shouldn't be applied multiple times over the next few years. Remember, semi-protection should be applied where protection used to be applied in cases of extreme vandalism, and thus its usage patterns should be similar. On this page, it was not protected indefinetely but protected many many times for a variable period of time. If we apply it on a weekly basis and remove until the next vandalism wave starts, then we will be in good faith with using it as a response rather than a pre-emptive measure against future vandalism. In other words, if we are not going to apply time limits within policy to curb protection creep, semi-protection needs to be lifted regularly in order to justify it remaining for such a length of time. -- kizzle 21:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
It'll be interesting to see what effect semi-protection has on this article. I've adapted my vandalism script so that it's capable of resolving down to the level of one week (any smaller period would probably be too prone to noise), and it's possible to see that vandalism has fluctuated greatly this month, rising to 38% during the week beginning December 5, but falling sharply the following week, and apparently staying steady so far this week.
Note: strictly speaking I'm measuring vandalism reverts, so the level of vandalism-related edits is about double that. If 38% of edits are vandalism reverts, probably around twice that proportion of edits are either vandalism or reverts--in that case, 76%. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 22:29, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Um, didn't noeditsection get removed a while back? -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 13:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Is this going to be permanent, or at least until he leaves office? If so, can we consider moving the template to the talk page? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
It amazing to look at the article's history and to see edits from well over 24 hours ago. Without semi-protection enabled, it's wasn't uncommon for there to only be 4-5 hours of edits on the history page [27] (using the default 50 edits/page). It will take a few days before we have any reliable stats on the effect of semi-protection, but thus far it's been a great success on this article. Carbonite | Talk 14:19, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
This article is about 94KB! What can be done to reduce it in size? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Secret Prisons -- was known in an article on totse.com back in 2002
Yes, this whole news thing was known since 2002 and ignored. Before I spend time to dig the article back up, is it worthy of getting bits of information on it put up in this wiki?
DyslexicEditor
23:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
I can confirm that the vandal who has been flooding this article with vandalisms from multiple accounts recently moved on to Jimmy Wales and vandalized there repeatedly as well. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-23 03:13
Can't they just edit any of the templates that link to dubya?
Most of these are not protected--13:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC) 07:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Holy WP:BEANS, batman... -- W.marsh 13:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I always have a wee laugh when someone brings out WP:BEANS... It's just like security through obscurity and thinking closed source code is more secure than open source code in IT - daft! Thanks/ wangi 18:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Most vandals are the drive by kind anyway. Most of them don't know that to access the templates you have to type Template: first and then the template name into the address bar and then it will be really funny cause the article won't be updated until the next person legitamitley changes the article and he will get blamed for replacing george bush's head with a penis. They don't know any of that so it won't do them any good. yeah.-- God of War 03:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
You are absolutely right zoe, You should not edit other people's talk page post-- God of War 03:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Heh, all this is so silly. Remove information about problems (that need to be fixed of course) from talk pages, I assume to keep these vandals from getting ideas. Yet of course its an odd idea to think that the vandals that would read the talk page wouldn't read the history. If people want to try to kiddyproof wikipedia, go for it. How about we try to fix the problems too. Arkon 03:44, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I am looking to get feedback on moving the Outside the United States section to it's own page. I believe it should be moved from the Bush Main Page. If you go to the leaders of the other English speaking nations (Blair, Howard, Martin & Clark) there is no section devoted to what people in other natons think of them. I would argue that the whole reason this section exists on this page is to let people who live outside the U.S. take shots at Bush. If anyone thinks the posting of that Daily Mirror photo on Bush's main page is anything less than that then they are mistaken. I am all for bashing politicians but it doesn't jive with the NPOV. It should not matter about the size of the US or his unpopularity. If no other leader's page has it then his should not. Even if I go to pages on Schroeder, Vicente Fox or Chirac there is no section devoted to what people in other nations think of them. You do not see Americans lining up to create sections ridiculing the German, Mexican or French presidents. It would be more appropriate to put a link to a 'Opinions Outside the US' in the 'See also' section.-- Looper5920 05:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
That is not what I was getting at. Never meant it to be taken that way. I am just trying to keep the NPOV.-- Looper5920 05:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm strongly against moving this from the article. It's been marginalised enough already. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 05:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
That is why I intentionally did not mention leaders of small nations that are not really global players. The U.S. is not the only "global player". Why doesn't Tony Blair's page quote that same Canadian/BBC poll to let us know what the people in the Phillipenes think of him? As for other global players , the president of China has nothing at all on his. Not one opinion poll of any kind from outside of China. Is not China the new global superpower?-- Looper5920 05:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I am totally opposed to moving the section from the article. No way is that NPOV. The international perspective on Bush is a vital part of the article. Moving it is a non-runner.
FearÉIREANN
\
(caint)
05:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
No. Bush is probably the most criticized person in the planet, and not mentioning that would be by itself POV. Tito xd( ?!? - help us) 06:01, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
How is the international perspective on Bush "vital?" From reading your personal page I can see you have very strong feelings about the man, but how are they vital. While he may generate intense hatred around the world it apparently has had no effect on his policies. Also, it is not the not the international community that voted to put Bush in office. This is not a pro/anti bush thing but if no other leader in the world has a section like this then something has to be off.
I am not going to beat this to death because I can see that I am going to lose this argument but the section just doesn't belong. .-- Looper5920 06:11, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
You know, if there's one thing I would take out of the article, it's the endless updating of polls. Geez, if someone wants to know Bush's (or Congress') poll ratings from five minutes ago, is an encyclopedia the place they should be looking? I mean, isn't that what CNN.com is for? Unschool 07:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
We need a {{ sprotected}} solution to folk adding {{ hightraffic}} to the article page! Almost as many rv's for that! wangi 16:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi there. Made a fairly bold edit. The 'Clinton and Carter did it' talking point has been thoroughly refuted. We're talking about wiretaps on Americans [28].
Not sure where the Reagan stuff came from, but it seemed out of place all by it's lonesome. Also removed a paid site link to the Chicago Tribune, and added the Dean quote from Boxer's site. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 18:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with this method, it's just not realistic to think it will work. Legitimate new contributors cannot add info. Please re-investigate. -- Goulcebrynn 19:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I edit anonymously for a variety of reasons, all of which I feel have merit. I'd prefer to keep it that way. "Semi-protection" is a true assertion, but "temporarily restricted" is a falsehood. Those who pushed this policy through are certainly focused on keeping protection of this type "always-on" at various political articles. 67.15.77.183 01:46, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Some comments to those opposed to permanent semi-protection of this article:
Thue | talk 19:49, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Semi protection is great and all, but one of the unintended side-effects is that I can no longer edit sections. For an article as long as Dubya this is awful since I can't use the browsers search function for a text box. Can someone please fix this?-- God of War 07:34, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 30 | ← | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | Archive 38 | → | Archive 40 |
The next person who decides it's a good idea to delete 25,000 edits, locking the database, and mixing previously deleted vandalisms back into the history, just to hide PUBLIC INFORMATION will get the privilege of explaining to brion why the database just exploded. Have a nice day :) — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-14 03:52
I've unprotected this article. Protection of this article should never be undertaken lightly, and there should never bee any reason to protect it for more than a few hours.
Also could whoever keeps disabling editing of sections please stop. I consider this to be very, very close to vandalism, because of its effect of hampering editing of this article. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 18:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
If it works at all, it's bu rendering this article extremely difficult to edit at all, let alone vandalise. The cure is worse than the disease. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 19:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I've removed it. Having NOEDITSECTION is not a real solution, whether it works or not. It is a pain for real editors and goes against the whole point of having section editing in the first place! wangi 14:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I hope everyone's got this page on their watchlists - it would be really embarrassing if they started messing with the pictures again and a reader saw it. Izehar ( talk) 19:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the back-and-forth over whether redlinks to obscure legislation should be listed, TexasAndroid has now posted those redlinks in List of United States federal legislation - which is where they should be, not necessarily here. I will contend, however, that almost any piece of legislation enacted by a vote of the Congress and signed into law by the President is encyclopedic, especially in a non-paper venue such as our own. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:44, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
And now for a non-vandalism, non-POV related discussion. :) (Wow. Can we actually have those on this page? :) )
I edited out several red links in the Legislation section. Two of them were put back in by one user (Jengod) and then removed by Izehar. Be nice to talk about this here before a revert war starts on such a trivial subject. (I mean, of all the things to have a revert war about on the GWB page, red links? :) )
Jengod called my removal of them nonsense. A bit harsh IMHO, but I've seen worse here on WP. For those who don't want to dig through the edit histories:
While I agree with Jengod that he has given one reason for the existence of red links, IMHO they are equally there to warn user that the link is disfunctional. That going there will get them nothing useful. And also to possibly warn that the link either needs to be fixed or unlinked, because it's not a useful link as is. And, on a high, high profile page like this, the last reason is the most important IMHO. I think that this page should be a showcase of what WP can do for a living, breathing encyclopedia. And as such, the page should be one of the most perfected pages we have. It'll never be perfect, that's impossible. But this page should be held to a higher standard than most others for appearance. (And content, but that's outside the scope of this comment) To that end, IMHO once again, red links detract from the appearance and utility of this page. - TexasAndroid 19:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
One side note to this. A quick count shows that four red links remain on the page currently. Three are to people, one is to yet another peice of legislation, this time in the article itself. I've place the legislation onto List of United States federal legislation, as I did with the first set at BD2412's request. But I'll hold off touching any of the links on the GWB page itself until this discussion can move a little more foreward. - TexasAndroid 20:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
In general, there are way too many links in this article. It's very distracting.
Is the warning label necessary? Has anyone done a survey to determine if this has actually reduced vandalism significantly enough to overrule the potential that it may be discouraging useful editors from participating?-- MONGO 21:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
For those who use Firefox but feel hindered by not being able to edit sections, you can use this Firefox extension (tested in 1.0.7 and 1.5), which allows you to search in edit boxes: Wikipedia:Tools/Browser_Integration#Search_within_Textarea_Extension. Make sure you restart Firefox after installing it, and make sure the mouse has been clicked inside the edit box. Then do CTRL+F. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-15 21:40
Finally! Thank you people! I was so annoyed and pis*ed of from the moment that neutrality dispute was added to the George W. Bush article. Finally those bloody Comrades have shut their bloody Communist traps and have left this poor, ravaged Wikipedia article in peace. I am a hell of a lot happier now. Thank you, SO MUCH!
It seems that WoW (or whoever he or she is) comes around between 20:00 and 22:00 EST....pattern? Deckiller 01:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
The article has been temporarily protected to deal with an influx on trolls vandalizing. Harro 5 01:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Could some admin change the word "averred" in the section of GW's religion to some synonym? (Not that I know what any synonym of such a ridiculous word might be--"implied", maybe?) I'd do it myself, but following Wikipedia's apparent philosophy of letting only the popular users edit popular pages, I can't. Thanks! Matt Yeager 04:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Who thinks that this whole business with the Jimbo personal information, is just some POV warriors underhanded way of assuring that the article stay locked? and un-editable-- 205.188.116.10 05:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
The protection notice is at the top of the page but the page isn't actually protected! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.97.123.201 ( talk • contribs) .
As it stands now, the Health section is entirely devoted to HIV/AIDS. There is no mention of the fact that the number of uninsured Americans has been rising under Bush's administration. Either the section should be renamed HIV-AIDS or additional information be added, revealing Bush's health care policy.
==No edit box == — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 21:52
Why is this there ? Is this article somehow so special that it should not be edited? Refdoc 17:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
There is quite clearly no consensus on this matter wahtsoever - A number of well respected editors and admins above have protested too. I do not think it is right to have such a feature without a high level of consensus. I am no vandal and this is not edit warring. Refdoc 18:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
If you look at the history of this page - there is a large group of users and admins who do not agree with this measure. I am but the last one in a row of editors who has removed it. I simply do not care whether this is a great measure of stopping vandalism. It is also a measure to stop useful editing - and this is what I do care about. Such drastic measures require overwhelming community support. Before you emply them it is up to you to demonstrate this being there. The edit history of today seems to suggest that it quite clearly is not there. Refdoc 18:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I have been accused yesterday of editwarring for removing several times the "no section edit" tag. It is quite clear from teh above discussions that there is not the slightest bit of consensus - not on whether any protection is needed, nor on whether this form of "protection" is the right one. I therefor can only suggest that this odious measure is removed until a consensus is found. Refdoc
Looking at the full history of this page, which I wouldn't recommend anyone else do (my browser was taking up 480MB of memory after the page loaded), I counted various vandalism reversion terms, and came out to just over 6,000. Assuming that each vandalism consisted of only one edit, that comes out to be (after some tedious calculation) over 12,000 edits related only to vandalism. This article has nearly 26,000 edits to date. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 22:28
Additionally, over 10,600 edits were by anonymous users, leaving 15400 for registered users. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 22:34
More fun facts: 249 edits were made in 2002, 555 in 2003, and 5533 in 2004. In 2005, we're up to 19,630. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 22:39
So far in December, about 600 vandalisms and 600 reversions = 1200 total edits related to vandalism, out of 1700 edits. In November, this total is 1700 out of 2600 edits; in October, 1700 out of 2900; in September, 1000 out of 1700; in August, 700 out of 1600. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 23:03
I've added a graph for 2005. "Vandalisms" means anything related to vandalism, including reverting vandalism. Everything else is "not vandalism". — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-16 23:58
Am I the only one who has noticed the current vandalism? -- The1exile 01:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, that was quick. Forget that last comment then. -- The1exile 01:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Yet more vandalism. I have reverted but I don't see why we just dont stick protection on it and edit it every month or so when the protection can be lifted for a few days. -- The1exile 12:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Do you all think it's time that we finally made a poll--and followed its conclusion--in an attempt to reach some sort of consensus about what we should do, protection-wise?
The reason I'm asking is because pretty much all the information is already out there, and the current situation (a perpetual flux between full protection, varied forms of semi-protection, and no protection) is intolerable for the long term. Persuant to WP:POLLS, I'm going to float the basic idea first and see if we all agree to a poll.
Here it is: we have everyone vote whether or not the page should have ANY sort of non-move protection. (Obviously, move protection has reached a consensus already that it's appropriate and should be kept.) Should the "protection" voters win, we can then have a further poll on what type of protection should be used (have a public, protected page with a secret editable one? full protection? 50-edit protection? etc). I would also suggest that a simple majority of non-sock puppet accounts should determine whether or not to keep it--ideally, there should be a clear consensus one way or another in order to do anything, and an unclear majority should result in keeping the status quo; however, there really isn't a status quo to keep here. Everything's a mess.
So, I'm soliciting opinions here--do we all want a poll on whether to offer any sort of non-move protection on the George W. Bush page? Matt Yeager 00:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't fret, Semi-protection just passed 103-4-2 along with Jimbo's blessing and input from several developers. Help is on the way. -- kizzle 01:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Admins can set new "good versions" as good edits pile up. I thought you said you read the discussions on this page? :) — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-17 02:08
Any attempt to make it more difficult for editors to alter this article will of course fail. It's a wiki, and its purpose is to produce an encyclopedia. We cannot do that by pretending that the articles are finished and must not be edited. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 20:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I just edited out the part "and former governor of Texas" because it's touched upon in the second paragraph. Deckiller 02:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I look up George W Bush, and what do I get? This bozo. This is Bush JR!!! Emphasis on the "Jr." This article should be placed under the appropriate heading, which would be "George W Bush Jr." Looking up "George W Bush" should bring up is father, the 41st president. (Yes, I know now that Bush Sr. is under the article for "George H W Bush." That doesn't change the fact that this article is for Bush Jr, and should be labeled as such.) ethernaut
I've used quite a number of search engines and websites, and, aside from "Jr," I cannot find anything seperating Bush Sr. from Bush Jr. Would you care to provide a site that proves that Bush Jr. doesn't actually have two middle names like his father? (Common knowledge need not apply. I have two middle names myself, but I use only one initial.) Thanks for any help. I'm trying to clear up several arguments. ethernaut
How should we praise the current NSA scandle? I think it should be included. Watsonladd 15:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
This is a raw count of reverts (which is a measure of vandalism) from January this year.
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 4699 | | Total edits | 19733 | +-------------------+----------+
So overall this year, from January 1st to date, about 24% of all edits on this article were reverts.
And since October 1:
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 2021 | | Total edits | 7227 | +-------------------+----------+
Up to 28%.
And for since December1:
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051201000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051201000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 552 | | Total edits | 1771 | +-------------------+----------+
Up to 31%.
How about the period October-November?
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051201000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051201000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 1469 | | Total edits | 5456 | +-------------------+----------+
About 27%.
This suggests a significant jump in reverts during December--the period during which we've had NOSECTIONEDIT directive in this article.
Okay let's look at October and November individually:
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051101000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051001000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051101000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 748 | | Total edits | 2890 | +-------------------+----------+
Average for October was 26%
select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051101000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051201000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20051101000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051201000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 721 | | Total edits | 2566 | +-------------------+----------+
Average for November was 28%.
So there does seem to have been quite a jump in December so far, from 28% to 31%. If making it difficult to edit sections has helped vandalism, the figures don't show it. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 20:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Locking the article would prevent it being edited--which is the purpose of having a wiki in the first place. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 20:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Your statistics have nothing to do with the addition of NOEDITSECTION and the notice, which only came in December. Look at the graph, notice the drop in % vandalism in December? Care to explain it? Your reasoning is bogus. On the whole, of course the vandalism has risen over the year, but we didn't have NOEDITSECTION or the notice for this whole year. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-17 20:52
Your statistics also ignore edit summaries like "rvv" "RVC" and ";rv vandal". — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-17 21:02
My statistics show 31% for December. It's true that I ignore rvv, rvc and rv vandal. I'll repeat them using those proxies. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't mind waiting until I've convinced everybody. The figures are pretty clear. There has been a marked increase in the number of vandalism reverts as a proportion of all edits during December so far, when one takes into account rollbacks, and edits containing the character strings 'rvc,'rvv' and 'rv vandal', and I'm confident that if we keep suppressing the editing of sections matter cannot improve. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:27, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
To make it plain, Brian, I'm making my queries against a mirror of the live database, and the figures I'm getting out are repeatable by anyone else with access to the tools server, simply by repeating my queries, the source of which I have listed.
If there is an error in my queries, please show this and I'll fix it and rerun. I'm not saying your figures are wrong, just that they don't match mine. You may convince me that my method has weakenesses, please feel free to show your own working and how you arrived at your figures. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Protected. The defamation vandal has struck again, thankfully only three times. android 79 21:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
For the whole year:select 'Vandalism reverts',count(1) from revision where (rev_comment like 'Reverted edits by%to last version by%' or lcase(rev_comment) like '%rvc%' or lcase(rev_comment) like '%rvv%' or lcase(rev_comment) like '%rv vandal%') and rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000 and rev_timestamp <=20051231000000 union select 'Total edits',count(1) from revision where rev_page=3414021 and rev_timestamp>20050101000000 and rev_timestamp<=20051231000000;
+-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | count(1) | +-------------------+----------+ | Vandalism reverts | 5631 | | Total edits | 19743 | +-------------------+----------+
This is about 29%, January to date.
Since October, the equivalent figure is 2355/7245, 32%.
Since the beginning of December, it's 637/1784, 36%.
For October alone, it was 872/2890, 30%.
For November alone, at was 844/2566, 32%.
This shows an even more marked jump for December than just counting rollbacks. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 21:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I have to say that I don't understand how NOEDITSECTION could be expected to prevent vandalism. My figures suggest that it has had no such effect. What it definitely does do is make it extremely difficult for a casual editor to edit a section, and this alone could well account for an increase in the proportion of vandalism to non-vandal edits. --
Tony Sidaway|
Talk
21:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
You know, I bet the libel vanda/WoW reads this talk page (how sad). Look at the name of this sockpuppet: User:Around between 20:00 and 22:00 EST. Ring a bell? Didn't Deckiller say:
That's probably why he/she's targeted this page - because he/she knows we're concerned about it. Izehar ( talk) 21:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Look, Wiki gets more popular, people hear about it, they hear they can go and edit any article about any thing, and if they're liberal Bush-haters, they come here, don't understand how much effort real people put into maintaining this page, and they vandalize it. I'll bet the vandalism rate of this page is actually a good metric for the growth of Wikipedia in general, whereas substantive edits (because there's prettymuch everything that can be said about Dubya already on the page) are more difficult to make, and so are not as related. Just my crazy theory. Does this help solve the vandalism problem? ... No, though it does suggest solutions involving pages that you, say, have to log in and have been a Wikipedian for a week before you're allowed to edit. JDoorjam 00:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, here goes: a straw poll. I have no clue about how long it should last, but we'll see. :-) Flcelloguy ( A note?) 21:44, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I started this, feel free to enrich. Izehar ( talk) 21:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
The article is currently protected right now, but I think a sentence or two should be added to the article about the recent revelations that Bush has repeatedly re-authorized spying on U.S. Citizens on U.S. soil without a warrant since 2002. This is very important news and speaks a lot about President Bush's views on privacy. -- Cyde Weys talk contribs 22:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
You've got to be kidding me. If anyone disagrees with Bush or says he's spying, they're "left" leaning. Give me a break. I'm a conservative, and Bush SPIED on the American people, and I'm with Arlen Specter regarding an investigation. I'm sick of using passive words to somehow soften everything this idiot does. He spied, the word is being used everywhere, NOT just left leaning sources. Please don't waste my time calling me "unpatriotic" because I don't care for Bush either. That isn't the point.
By the way, everyone can read these posts. You are giving people ideas about how to vandalise this site, by letting them know every move you're about to make. Go to the sysops and have them do something. Way too much time is spent talking about things, with no solutions forthcoming. It's like listening to Congressional hearings. I've been watching this site for two whole months, and this conversation never changes. It just takes up archive space that could be used for something else. 142.151.143.157 04:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
For what? The thing about the spying is that, according to the law, a court was supposed to rubber stamp a warrant. It bothers people (left and right) that the President didn't bother to obey that law. The Times sometimes doesn't capitalize his title. Some guy here insists on including Mr. Bush in his category - drunk drivers. Apes throwing shit don't look dignified, but if you don't get hit I guess it can be fun. Don't get too close, keep a tally of whose aim is better, and do not yield to the temptation to scoop some up and heave it. Metarhyme 05:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
The section on gaps in Bush's military record is too biased against him. Stating: "Skeptics contend that many of the official records can no longer be found, and that the matter is at best ambiguous. Barring the discovery of additional documents that are either exculpatory or incriminating, the issue is unlikely to be settled conclusively." implies a likely 50/50 split between the suspicions being fact or false. On the contrary, all documents found have corraborated the president's story. The wiki article should reflect that.
Additionally, stating: "Several months later the statewide manual recount of all counties was completed by a group of newspapers and it was determined that Al Gore had won in Florida under four counting standards and had lost to Bush under the other four counting standards." is deceptive, and does not reflect an unbiased summary of even the articles quoted. This quote strongly implies that there was an even chance for Gore to have won the election, and that it was simply a matter of which of eight recount methods were used. On the contrary, most of the proposed methods that resulted in Gore winning were standards that would be *illegal* to use -- for example, assuming that a person that voted for both Gore and Buchanan was a vote for Gore, something no county in America allows.
The NORC study is also not the best study to link for on the subject. A better link would be to the consortium of Florida newspapers that did a manual recount after the election is over. They found that using the most commonly accepted standard for recounts, Bush won. There were variant counting methods by which Gore could have won, but there is a general consensus that he would have lost even if the third recount hadn't been blocked by the US Supreme Court.
Links: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-05-10-recountmain.htm http://www.democ.uci.edu/resources/virtuallibrary/vote2000.htm
-- Wkerney 23:27, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Much as I'm vehemently against Bush and his policies, I've got to say that the chart of his approval rating seems a bit misleading, as it only charts the range between 35 and 90%. It looks as if his approval rating had fallen to near 0% (if only!), the way that this chart construes things. If someone wants to fix this, or find a chart that reflects this, please do. But I do think having the chart is better than having no chart at all, since his declining popularity is certainly noteworthy. Aislar 02:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Although I will say I am not a Republican, the neutrality of this article is not completely neutral. There are many adjectives that carry negative connotations that are used far too liberally (no pun intended). Also, personal takes on the article are glaring "Nation building with MIXED RESULTS". What do you guys say?
Michaelzhao 05:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)Michaelzhao
This afternoon, 24.29.84.114 ( talk · contribs) inserted the following text into the article:
There are a number of problems with this. Firstly it refers to "our continuous presence", presumably this is written from the point of view of the United States of America. Secondly it suggests material assistance provided by Zarqawi to other factions without providing a reference for this. Thirdly it suggests that only this insurgency prevents Iraq from living in peace (ignoring the disaffected Shias, Sadrists, etc). I have removed this text in its current form but a rewritten version may well belong in the article. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 14:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is there larger space, between the title and the body text of this article, than other articles? It's kinda irritating to anal people like me; I'd understand if it's a necessary byproduct of some measure against vandalism, though. -- Apostrophe 02:25, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
This is an absurd category to even exist on wikipedia much less be used to start linking people too. It provides no value and is simply there to continue the smear. Let's vote on who wants it to stay and who wants it to go. -- Jbamb
It seems wrong to me that the He-Man article has been protected for the past 48 hours with little vandalism, and the article for the President of the United States has been nothing but vandalized for the same amount of time. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
In one of the televised debates in the 2000 Republican primaries, all participating candidates were asked to name their favorite philosopher. Bush responded by stating "Jesus Christ", because "he changed my life".
Here is at least one article that supports my recollection:
http://archives.cjr.org/year/00/4/hanson.asp Vegasjon 00:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Here's another http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec00/religion_9-1.html Vegasjon 00:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
A number of authors and commentators have alleged that Bush secured an abortion for his girlfriend Robin Lowman (now Robin Garner) in 1971. Although this allegation remains unproven, it ought to at least merit a mention on Wikipedia's entry for Bush. After all, the Bill Clinton entry is filled with unproven, wild allegations (such as the completely discredited bogus tale of how Clinton was somehow connected to the "murder" of Vince Foster). Until this happens, it's going to be obvious to a lot of us how Wikipedia is demonstrating a clear pro-GOP bias. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.187.35.134 ( talk • contribs) 04:08, December 20, 2005 (UTC)
Here's a source that describes the allegation: http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=159 I understand that anyone who has reported or investigated this allegation has been subject to threats from Bush operatives (I know of one reporter who received numerous death threats from right-wing nutcases; he eventually backed off the story). I just hope Wikipedia doesn't cave in to pressure on this issue.
Can someone please mention this (actually quite credible and certainly newsworthy) Bush/Robin Lowman Abortion Issue on the Wikipedia/Bush entry. Either that, or, for balance, remove that garbage about Clinton "murdering" Vince Foster from Clinton's entry on Wikipedia. Either that, or Wikipedia needs to just go ahead and formally incorporate as an official affiliate of the Republican Party.
"In the late 1990s, our Government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone and then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak," Bush said.
Why does he have to repeat something already said in the sentence.
"And guess what happened. Saddam ... Osama bin Laden changed his behaviour. He began to change how he communicated. We're at war. And we must protect America's secrets."
Even his speech is incoherent.
This are all, basically, current event "scandals" against Bush. Aside from a few sentences that he enjoyed wide support after 9/11, is there nothing anyone can find anywhere that indicated 40 some odd percent of the American people think he is doing a good job? -- Jbamb 23:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
This stretches the bounds for having a NPOV, but it does seem to be authentic. If someone can confirm that this is true, it would make an interesting addition to our Wikipedian entry. [10] - AWF
Carbonite changed this paragraph
to read
The explanation was "reword to eliminate some POV and to more clearly cite the source." Carbonite's version is factually incorrect.
It is not POV to say that a change is statistically insignificant or marginally significant. These are precise terms of art that mean a difference that is less than the margin of error or equal to it. Scientific journals, news articles and encyclopedia entries commonly use these terms. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
It is a factually unsupported statement that "support from African-Americans increased." The data is consistent with a decrease, an increase, or no change. You can only say there was no significant change or that there was a statistically insignificant increase.
It is also factually incorrect that all of the data comes from the CNN exit poll. The 2004 data does come from there, but CNN used 2000 data from the defunct Voter News Service. This detail would be distracting to include in the main article. The CNN reference provides no real information, since the real story is in the footnote. It would be best to just stick with the footnote.
At least the current wording is better than what someone else tried to change it to say. They said that the change was "statistically significant for a Republican," as if the laws of mathematics are different for Republicans:-)
-- RichardMathews 06:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Not sure where to put this, but the annual deficit is measured in billions. Everywhere the article mentions the deficit, it says "trillion".
71.251.26.244
20:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)Anonymous
No point in including this except to advance a POV. The crowd pushing this has always been fringe. -- Jbamb 06:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I will disagree with the aforementioned statement. Impeach Prez or put him in prison. I don't care, just do it. -- Bumpusmills1 00:37, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
There have been articles submitted - resolutions of inquiry. And btw, [24] Kevin baas 15:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I found something quite interesting: [25] Kevin baas 16:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC) Also: n:House_raises_impeachment_issue
MONGO, you may have your opinion, but this is not the forum for discussing opinions. Kevin baas 16:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Jbamb, the section that this is to be included in is public perception - and the content being addressed is not as you say hypothetical speculation, but public perception and purely that. Where do you see speculation? Where do you see anything hypothetical? (besides the poll question - "...if...", which i agree could have been better without this.) Please cite the specific sentences or fragments that you are refering to. Kevin baas 16:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, let me point out that that statement by Gallup is inaccurate, and it was certainly irresponsible of whoever said it to make an inaccurate public statement. Kevin baas 16:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, in the latest Barron's full text paid link -- User:RyanFreisling @ 18:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Is it necessary to give to billing to the theories that Bush screwed the National Guard and that he's a coke head? Can we say nothing else about is family and early life? This should be expanded greatly. For examples, see the John Kerry article that has a substantial bio without giving top billing to the detractors. -- Jbamb 14:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is this page vandalized so much? What are the motives exactly? People inserting email addresses followed by vulgar comments are just waisting their time. 68.103.149.210 03:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
It's something new. This is the first attempt at using it. Read up on it at WP:SEMI. Essentially, anyone with an account older than about 4 days can edit the article. Newer accounts and anons cannot. -- Woohookitty (cat scratches) 08:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Well that makes no sense. This article has been a vandalism target for a long time and will continue to be one. Are people suggesting that sprotection is actually going to be removed any time soon? If not, we need to get rid of such a butt-ugly notice. Dan100 ( Talk) 14:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is this semi-protected? I see no extreme circumstances at this point. If it simply because this is always vandalized alot, I think that is an abuse of the semi policy, it was and is not intended to be used indefinitly. - Greg Asche (talk) 22:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I think I'm doing a terrible job of getting my point across, so I'm going to back up a bit. For right now, let's ignore the issue of how long this page might be semi-protected. It's important to understand that I'm not just referring to this intial protection, but any future protections. Whenever this page is semi-protected, there will be a reason for it. Usually this reason will be an especially high amount of vandalism.
OK, so now we have a semi-protected page. How does the page get unprotected? Do we want anons and new users making requests at WP:RFPP? Or should it be up to admin to take at look at how the page has been protected and decide "OK, that's long enough, let's unprotect"? In my opinion, it should be the latter. That's why I oppose directing people to WP:RFPP to request unprotection. If any requests are to be made, it should be on this talk page, not somewhere else. Keep in mind that I'm only proposing such a process for this page, not for any other semi-protected page. I'm not saying that we should never unprotect this article. I just think the notice should reflect the reality that when or if this article is semi-protected, telling users to make requests at WP:RFPP isn't especially helpful. Since this article is unique in the amount of vandalism it gets, it doesn't seem unreasonable to have a special semi-protection notice just for this page. Carbonite | Talk 16:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Sigh...I wish people had tried to address protection creep rather than keeping it simple early on. As it stands now, GWB should not simply be slapped with semi-protection and left on. However, this does not mean that it shouldn't be applied multiple times over the next few years. Remember, semi-protection should be applied where protection used to be applied in cases of extreme vandalism, and thus its usage patterns should be similar. On this page, it was not protected indefinetely but protected many many times for a variable period of time. If we apply it on a weekly basis and remove until the next vandalism wave starts, then we will be in good faith with using it as a response rather than a pre-emptive measure against future vandalism. In other words, if we are not going to apply time limits within policy to curb protection creep, semi-protection needs to be lifted regularly in order to justify it remaining for such a length of time. -- kizzle 21:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
It'll be interesting to see what effect semi-protection has on this article. I've adapted my vandalism script so that it's capable of resolving down to the level of one week (any smaller period would probably be too prone to noise), and it's possible to see that vandalism has fluctuated greatly this month, rising to 38% during the week beginning December 5, but falling sharply the following week, and apparently staying steady so far this week.
Note: strictly speaking I'm measuring vandalism reverts, so the level of vandalism-related edits is about double that. If 38% of edits are vandalism reverts, probably around twice that proportion of edits are either vandalism or reverts--in that case, 76%. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 22:29, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Um, didn't noeditsection get removed a while back? -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 13:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Is this going to be permanent, or at least until he leaves office? If so, can we consider moving the template to the talk page? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
It amazing to look at the article's history and to see edits from well over 24 hours ago. Without semi-protection enabled, it's wasn't uncommon for there to only be 4-5 hours of edits on the history page [27] (using the default 50 edits/page). It will take a few days before we have any reliable stats on the effect of semi-protection, but thus far it's been a great success on this article. Carbonite | Talk 14:19, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
This article is about 94KB! What can be done to reduce it in size? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Secret Prisons -- was known in an article on totse.com back in 2002
Yes, this whole news thing was known since 2002 and ignored. Before I spend time to dig the article back up, is it worthy of getting bits of information on it put up in this wiki?
DyslexicEditor
23:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
I can confirm that the vandal who has been flooding this article with vandalisms from multiple accounts recently moved on to Jimmy Wales and vandalized there repeatedly as well. — 0918 BRIAN • 2005-12-23 03:13
Can't they just edit any of the templates that link to dubya?
Most of these are not protected--13:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC) 07:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Holy WP:BEANS, batman... -- W.marsh 13:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I always have a wee laugh when someone brings out WP:BEANS... It's just like security through obscurity and thinking closed source code is more secure than open source code in IT - daft! Thanks/ wangi 18:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Most vandals are the drive by kind anyway. Most of them don't know that to access the templates you have to type Template: first and then the template name into the address bar and then it will be really funny cause the article won't be updated until the next person legitamitley changes the article and he will get blamed for replacing george bush's head with a penis. They don't know any of that so it won't do them any good. yeah.-- God of War 03:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
You are absolutely right zoe, You should not edit other people's talk page post-- God of War 03:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Heh, all this is so silly. Remove information about problems (that need to be fixed of course) from talk pages, I assume to keep these vandals from getting ideas. Yet of course its an odd idea to think that the vandals that would read the talk page wouldn't read the history. If people want to try to kiddyproof wikipedia, go for it. How about we try to fix the problems too. Arkon 03:44, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I am looking to get feedback on moving the Outside the United States section to it's own page. I believe it should be moved from the Bush Main Page. If you go to the leaders of the other English speaking nations (Blair, Howard, Martin & Clark) there is no section devoted to what people in other natons think of them. I would argue that the whole reason this section exists on this page is to let people who live outside the U.S. take shots at Bush. If anyone thinks the posting of that Daily Mirror photo on Bush's main page is anything less than that then they are mistaken. I am all for bashing politicians but it doesn't jive with the NPOV. It should not matter about the size of the US or his unpopularity. If no other leader's page has it then his should not. Even if I go to pages on Schroeder, Vicente Fox or Chirac there is no section devoted to what people in other nations think of them. You do not see Americans lining up to create sections ridiculing the German, Mexican or French presidents. It would be more appropriate to put a link to a 'Opinions Outside the US' in the 'See also' section.-- Looper5920 05:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
That is not what I was getting at. Never meant it to be taken that way. I am just trying to keep the NPOV.-- Looper5920 05:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm strongly against moving this from the article. It's been marginalised enough already. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 05:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
That is why I intentionally did not mention leaders of small nations that are not really global players. The U.S. is not the only "global player". Why doesn't Tony Blair's page quote that same Canadian/BBC poll to let us know what the people in the Phillipenes think of him? As for other global players , the president of China has nothing at all on his. Not one opinion poll of any kind from outside of China. Is not China the new global superpower?-- Looper5920 05:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I am totally opposed to moving the section from the article. No way is that NPOV. The international perspective on Bush is a vital part of the article. Moving it is a non-runner.
FearÉIREANN
\
(caint)
05:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
No. Bush is probably the most criticized person in the planet, and not mentioning that would be by itself POV. Tito xd( ?!? - help us) 06:01, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
How is the international perspective on Bush "vital?" From reading your personal page I can see you have very strong feelings about the man, but how are they vital. While he may generate intense hatred around the world it apparently has had no effect on his policies. Also, it is not the not the international community that voted to put Bush in office. This is not a pro/anti bush thing but if no other leader in the world has a section like this then something has to be off.
I am not going to beat this to death because I can see that I am going to lose this argument but the section just doesn't belong. .-- Looper5920 06:11, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
You know, if there's one thing I would take out of the article, it's the endless updating of polls. Geez, if someone wants to know Bush's (or Congress') poll ratings from five minutes ago, is an encyclopedia the place they should be looking? I mean, isn't that what CNN.com is for? Unschool 07:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
We need a {{ sprotected}} solution to folk adding {{ hightraffic}} to the article page! Almost as many rv's for that! wangi 16:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi there. Made a fairly bold edit. The 'Clinton and Carter did it' talking point has been thoroughly refuted. We're talking about wiretaps on Americans [28].
Not sure where the Reagan stuff came from, but it seemed out of place all by it's lonesome. Also removed a paid site link to the Chicago Tribune, and added the Dean quote from Boxer's site. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 18:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with this method, it's just not realistic to think it will work. Legitimate new contributors cannot add info. Please re-investigate. -- Goulcebrynn 19:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I edit anonymously for a variety of reasons, all of which I feel have merit. I'd prefer to keep it that way. "Semi-protection" is a true assertion, but "temporarily restricted" is a falsehood. Those who pushed this policy through are certainly focused on keeping protection of this type "always-on" at various political articles. 67.15.77.183 01:46, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Some comments to those opposed to permanent semi-protection of this article:
Thue | talk 19:49, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Semi protection is great and all, but one of the unintended side-effects is that I can no longer edit sections. For an article as long as Dubya this is awful since I can't use the browsers search function for a text box. Can someone please fix this?-- God of War 07:34, 25 December 2005 (UTC)